I remember a commercial some years ago that talked about how someday we would have every song ready to play at the touch of a finger, and someday we would check into a hotel and they would have whatever movie we wanted to watch. Someday, no matter where you were, you would be able to have a face-to-face call with your loved ones. And they said all this with the kind of gravitas you’d expect to be reserved for curing cancer or discovering teleportation. It all seemed like a nice idea at the time, but impossibly far off.

And now, for all intents and purposes, we’d just call that a normal day with a 4G cellular signal. The result, of course, was not world peace or a marked improvement in the general mirthfulness of first world populations. In fact, what we’ve ended up with is a kind of disaffected mundanity. These magical boxes on our desk, in our pockets, on the coffee table at home, in our entertainment centers and even now on our glasses are just the ordinary trappings of another ordinary day.

Is it that we somehow missed the moment to marvel at technology, at our own advancement? Were we moving too fast to stop and give ourselves something like a moment of contentment? Did we forget that we promised ourselves we were going to be really impressed?